Small libraries are often challenged to find the staff, skills, or time needed to meet growing community needs and demands for digital literacy training. Volunteers can help you meet these needs! Learn strategies from two successful statewide projects eager to share tools and curricula to help get volunteers ready for technology training in your small or rural library. California’s Get Involved: Powered by Your Library provides libraries with tools to recruit, train and retain skilled volunteers. And Guiding Ohio Online has created curricula for volunteers to deliver digital literacy training through computer classes and one-on-one computer assistance in libraries of all sizes. Project staff will share their expertise and experience to help you build the program that is right for your community.

Like many libraries, Michigan’s Herrick District Library found itself with a leaner staff facing more responsibilities in recent years. The idea of sending employees out of the building to staff community awareness events seemed like a challenging concept. This Michigan library not only developed a volunteer force to meet the challenge, but they now have a sustainable volunteer training and management model to apply in future situations where the library has big dreams but lacks the staffing required to pursue them. Come hear from a Geek the Library shining star, and learn how to engage your community’s volunteer force.

Format:Webinar, original date September 14, 2010Hosted by:WebJunction and the Association for Rural and Small LibrariesLength: 1 hour

How do library trustees get trained? How are director and trustee roles defined to ensure a healthy library organization? How are trustee relationships cultivated both in and outside the library circle? Join us on September 14, 2 pm Eastern, for a webinar exploring these and other questions related to library trustees that will provide you with practical ideas and tactical strategies to support and advocate for your library organization as a trustee, or library director in a small or rural community.

Format: Webinar, original date January 26, 2017Hosted by: WebJunction and the Association for Rural and Small LibrariesLength: 1 hour

Library staff are expected to embrace technology advancements and keep their skills sharp and their libraries relevant. But what about library boards—how tech savvy are your trustees? The more that trustees are dialed into a personal use of technology, the better advocates they will be for the library’s technology needs. Learn some fun and practical ways to inspire greater tech savviness in your trustees. You don’t need a board of IT specialists, just a board that has a sharper set of digital tools